


now is nowhere except underfoot

by twistedingenue



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Autumn, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Hayride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:43:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedingenue/pseuds/twistedingenue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint isn't in the habit of turning down assignments, and especially ones that are actually vacations in disguise, but he's willing to make an exception. But Coulson merely tilts his head and blandly smiles, sure signs that Clint is never going to win this one.</p>
<p>Clint escorts Darcy Lewis home to work, inadvertently  fakes being her boyfriend and learns another medieval weapon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	now is nowhere except underfoot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Britt1975](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britt1975/gifts).



> Title is from Mary Oliver's Fall Song.  
> A gift for britt1975, who needed cheering up one day and I couldn't stop at just one scene, or even just one trope. Pumpkin Festival shamelessly stolen from Morton, Illinois, Pumpkin Capitol of the World.

Clint isn't in the habit of turning down assignments, and especially ones that are actually vacations in disguise, but he's willing to make an exception. But Coulson merely tilts his head and blandly smiles, sure signs that Clint is never going to win this one.

"Do you have a moral objection to a small town festival? Or is to the lack of actual danger?" Coulson lays down word of law for Clint. There's not much he can object to honestly without sounding less than either professional or a coward.

"No sir," He answers.

"Then why are you trying to turn down a milk run?" Clint's known Coulson long enough know to realize that this is Coulson being interested in a subject, and wanting to contribute to the office gossip.

Thankfully, Clint does know how to deal with that. He smirks, "Just wanted to see if I could give you a little bit of shit this afternoon."

So it's not like Clint can't accompany Ms Lewis home where she is not only expected to be at some pumpkin festival, but to help her family run it. And Clint’s from Iowa, where small festivals and such were actually lifeblood for his early work. He knows that when it’s a family at the forefront, every person counts. It’s not the job, it’s the company.

Darcy is the annoying little shit from New Mexico that keeps ending up wherever he is, and it drives him crazy. And every time she leaves or he leaves, it’s not relief that he feels but an ache in his gut. It doesn’t feel right that a woman who is barely out of being just a kid does that to him, but that’s his life. If it’s a bad idea, his subconscious will find a way to make it happen.

So yeah, he’s fixated on pretty girl with strong family ties and a sense of responsibility. There’s no way that this could possibly go wrong.

**

“Sorry you got stuck with me,” Darcy says as she hoists her bag onto her shoulder. They flew commercial, into a small airport that makes Clint nervous just because it’s security seems to consist of a couple of TSA and two rent a cops that don’t even look old enough to be out of high school. They could probably overpower a few sandwiches and thats about it. “I know this isn’t your usual gig. If I could have gotten out of it, I would have.”

“What’s do you do there that’s so important no one else could do it?” Clint Barton, saying all the right things to the ladies, like insinuate that what they do isn’t important.

Darcy gives him a befuddled smile, “I don’t really know. I’m the only person under thirty now, so I’m pretty sure I’m the one that’ll just get sent anywhere they need a body. I used to help do accounting, but they finally trained a volunteer for that while I was at school.” Her whole body moves with an internal laugh and then says in a pure midwestern drawl like he hasn’t heard in a long time. “Darcy, you get a reprieve for four years and then you are ours until you have babies.” She groans, “I’ve often considered…”

“Don’t, just don’t complete that sentence.”

“There are worse reasons to have a kid.” She points out. “But that requires actually having one, and I don’t think the life of a jet setting lab rat is the life I’d want to give a child. It also requires…” she trails off, looking at the line for the car rental that they are about to get into. The single clerk is dealing with an impatient woman, and there’s a youngish man behind her. “Oh please, just follow my lead.”

Before Clint can realize that something is wrong and not in an explosive way, Darcy wraps her hand in his and guides it over her shoulder, fitting neatly into his side. Right, Murphey’s Law: Everything that can go wrong, will. Clint Barton corollary: If there is something he’d like to avoid, it will happen.

The man in front of them turns around and immediately grins, expresses his surprise at seeing her and tries to wrap Darcy in a big hug. Clint gets the picture pretty quickly and while he can’t stop the embrace, he does pull it short, pulling Darcy back against him, showy and smiling with bared teeth.

Clint hasn't felt the weight of a person assessing him in quite awhile. For as much as his work is dangerous, it's also lonely and rarely involves the other party knowing he's there. When he is looked over to see if he'd be a problem, its a situational scan. This man, however, is taking his time, comparing and obviously thinking he'd come out on top.

Clint loves it when they think that. It's so much more satisfying being the underdog in a fight. Clint assess in a much less noticeable way. No weapons, no calluses, slumped office manager posture. Guy is taller than Clint, but that's not uncommon, and built a little broader, barrel chested. The kind of strength that comes from bar brawls and weekend warrior shit, not serious gym time or combat.

"Darce, it's so good to see you! You in for the fest?"

She presses a little bit more into his side, putting on a big fake smile (She's going to have to work on that, if she keeps working with SHIELD, but this guy doesn’t seem to be able to tell the difference) “Darrell.” Darcy doesn't say it good to see him. "You know I am. Would a Lewis miss a few pumpkins being thrown around?"

“You were gone for a year or two,” He points out. “And who’d you bring with you this time? Not an honors...” and he scoffs on the word, and Darcy’s jaw tenses, “sorority sister, I see.”

“Clint,” he says, extending a hand with good cheer and all the laid back but practiced charm of a well natured country boy, “been dating Darce for a little while now.” Whatever was tense in Darcy actually relaxes. Darrell doesn’t hid his tells very well, and his eyes graze over Darcy, lingering with greed, while the teller impatiently calls for the next customer.

**

“So….ex?” Clint says in the car as Darcy drives to her parents house.

“Darrell only wishes that were the case.” She shakes her head, “He’s been trying to date me since high school. He’s never tried anything, but he seriously does not get that he’s not my type at all.”

Clint’s type is women who are far too good for him. All he can tell now is that Darcy doesn’t like guys with more muscles than sense.

“Lucky for me that you came with me,” she flashes a genuine smile with a quick glance over, “He’s never stopped before asking me out. I came sophomore year bringing my roommate, and he hit on me for three hours straight. Because my parents sent him to come pick me up.” She hits the steering wheel. “Damn, he’s working with my parents this year. You up for a little more subterfuge, baby?”

Clint thinks of the way she slid easily against his side, the weight of her hand in his, and thinks just how painful it’s going to be when the weekend is over and he won’t have any reason to feel any of that. But it might just be a happy thought for hard nights.

“ — I mean, I’ve never been all demonstrative with boyfriends around my folks or anything, and they’ll still separate us to sleep tonight, so there shouldn’t have to be any sort of weirdness. You aren’t seeing anyone right? Because if this is going to be weird, I can talk my way around it…”

“No.” Shit, not the right thing to say. “I mean, I’m not seeing anyone. And seeing you for a weekend, that’s still a vacation of an op.” He says a little too quickly and a little too openly for it not to come out as honest truth.

Darcy swallows her lips in a grin and raises her eyebrows, but on the back of her neck, Clint can see the beginnings of a blush that creeps up and around her collarbones. They spend the rest of the ride over to the ‘ancestral home’ with chatter, catching him up to speed on her family, the things he might need to know as a boyfriend rather than a friend coming to help out.

And when they reach the door to the house, when Darcy rings the doorbell to be let in, backpack slug around her shoulder, well, he’s also got an arm around her waist and a churn in his stomach. Because this isn’t real, but it’s easy and it’s something he’s wanted since he saw her and Foster start tearing apart the universe in search of new and strange worlds that they knew existed.

***

It turns out, being Darcy’s boyfriend is much the same as being her friend, too, but with a few extra touches and the ability to touch back. Her family is kind, if harried, and they don’t ask too many questions. In his earshot at least. The first day though, her father takes one good look at Clint and throws him into the back of a pickup truck, Darcy confirming that she’ll be at her folks all day and flashing her panic button and that the fairground is only ten minutes out, and puts him to work.

It’s good honest hard work, the type he remembers from before he picked up a bow. It rained the night before, and he lays down straw and sundry into mud-prone areas, stacks hay bales and helps set up, he is not kidding here, and his choice of weaponry is not isolated in this regard, the family trebuchet.

They let him test it. Apparently, his aim is just as good with pumpkins as it is with arrows.

***

Darcy’s family is grilling her, but only when they think he isn’t there to listen. Clint’s a bit of a pro when it comes to being where he shouldn’t and he overhears a conversation as Darcy and her mother confer over spreadsheets.

“No, not long, “ Darcy sighs. “I actually thought he’d never really notice me. We work, well, not with each other, but near each other. There’s a lot of other women who are just…poised and smart, and better at the things I’m pretty damn awesome at. He’s around them, and I didn’t think he’d really see me.”

“Well then, what happened?” Her mother prompts, elbowing her in the side. He’s notice about this family is that they’ve got sharp elbows and quick wits, but they don’t take pride in that. It’s no-nonsense and practical, they’ve got shit to do, why waste time.

This they talked about, coming up with something plausible, “He was coordinating the security upgrades for our lab and I was in charge of the lab end of things. We hit it off and working lunches became date ones pretty quick.” But Darcy isn’t a great actress, he’s seen that, she wears her emotions on her face and in her voice, and its clear, that even though the facts aren’t true everything behind them is.

“He’s so much older than you,” and yeah, there’s a reason why he hasn’t gone for it, but her mother has some other reason in mind. He thinks experience, all the shit he’s done and seen and how he doesn’t want that to get too close to Darcy. It’s not like Darcy is some innocent, but she’s not a killer, and all the things she’s seen are more clear cut than than sniping off rooftops. “He looks pretty good, but how’s his health? He’s not old, but….”

“Mom!” Darcy says, whirling in her chair. “We haven’t been seeing each other that long! Not enough to be worried about that.”

“He’s met us, Darcy. Grown man doesn’t go to meet the family unless he’s thinking serious. I’ve seen him, he’s besotted. The way he looks at you when you aren’t watching? Honey, you think long and hard about where this is going, don’t lead him on if you aren’t willing for distance,” She says in return, stopping the chair midspin. “And you? You’ve got the same look, except younger so think hard.”

Darcy knits her eyebrow, her jaw dropping and her lips forming a loose O, before she closes up and say, “Let’s just get these done before tomorrow, okay? I’d like to sleep sometime tonight.”

* **

Clint is up half the night, thinking of besotted, and how much he must be wearing it plain if regular folks are able to see past what he sees as his public face, good humored and okay, a little bit of a shit. If anyone can see now that he likes this woman, what of the rest of of his team. Natasha and Coulson. It’s got to be a red flag to them.

He punches his pillow, tries to get comfortable, but something about how Coulson insisted he take guard duty niggles at him. Clint sees his smile and the tilt of his eyebrows, how interested he was in Clint’s reaction.

Clint’s laughter erupts from his mouth in a gasp. His handler is playing matchmaker, is he? Phil probably wasn’t counting on the impromptu relationship cover, but Clint’s missions rarely go as orderly as they are planned to. And since there’s no sign of outside trouble, of course it has to be emotional.

He tosses and turns on this, on how Darcy looked when she realized that maybe she liked Clint too. Clint’s seen epiphanies before; low level minions who see the truth of their works, deals gone horribly wrong and out of control, but none of them are quite like her slow shock and wide eyes just before she dismissed it and went to back to work.

Like she believe he’d never think of her like that. She hasn’t shied away from any of his touches, she put theirs palms together and pulls him close. Darcy can’t hide that it’s a little awkward for her, but Clint now realizes that its for a different reason.

Eventually he falls asleep, without a plan for the next day other than work, his and hers and what they do together, but there’s something a little lighter about his sleep.

***

Working the fair alongside Darcy is an enlightening experience. Foster’s lab can be exciting sometimes, and Darcy is always in the middle of it, handling things with quick wit and organization. But here, here Darcy never stops moving. He helps her bring boxes from the gates to the food vendors when they run out of things early, she spends an hour with face painters, and her fingers are blue and pink and purple and have so much glitter on them that she streaks her jeans with inadvertent swipes of her hands.

They are kept so busy, running every errand, that the one time they run into Darrell, he only has time to smile with intent before Darcy pulls on Clint’s arm to direct him to the next place to go.

They’ve walked the fairground, circled it and crossed it. Darcy spends time in accounting, at admissions, and she and Clint have a grand old time measuring just how far pumpkins can fly. She’s red-faced, laughing and sweating by the time they finish the clean up and he pulls the guts and seeds out of her hair. He takes a little longer than he absolutely needs, her hair is soft and he relishes the way it feels against his fingers. They sit in the grass together, just breathing, Darcy leaning against his shoulder in a way that still just feels friendly. He lays down and she tumbles after him, her head hitting his chest and eliciting a full body laugh.

By the end of the day, he’s as exhausted as he is by the end of any mission, and the field is empty except for the last hayride coming through. There’s only a few people on it, a couple of weary parents and their overexcited children.

Darcy pulls a wayward blade of grass out of his hair and sighs. "We should take a ride, enjoy some part of the day."

"You haven't enjoyed today?" Clint says, low and private to her.

Darcy turns her head, and clint realizes just how close they are at this moment, but the the tractor just keeps getting closer and if they don't want to walk all the way across the grounds, they have to get up now.

"Today," she says, her breath touching his face, "I've liked today a lot more than others."

He keeps taking chances, takes liberty in his manhandling, and hauls her up, holding her hand and steadying her by the hip. He’s still holding onto her when she stretches up and onto her toes, waving over the tractor so that it’ll come to them.

They get on, Clint still helping her as she just scrambles over the side, not bothering to get to the back end, and Clint follows with a lot more grace and athletic ability. He’s not a showoff, he’s just naturally gifted, and what amounts to hopping a fence is old hat and parlor tricks.

“I’m sure that’s what you think, Clint.” Darcy rolls her eyes, and he settles beside her on a half destroyed hay bale. “That if something is easy, it should still be a production.” He feels a hand reaching out for his, and she lifts his arm over her shoulder.

The tractor jostles them around a little bit, and there’s a kid who keeps looking up with his wide eyes, kids are smart, and this one is just tired enough not to say anything. Darcy is a steady weight against his chest and this is pretty good. If nothing ever happens, this is still a pretty good day. The fairground ambles by, the bare, trampled grass surrounded by corn and dusty sky.

Clint Barton, however, is a bona fide risk taker. It’s sort of his business to take the risk, and he gets close to her again, stroking the side of her cheek with his hand. “Tell me if I’m way off base here,” and lifts her mouth to his. Her lips are chapped from a day of work, and she softens against him, leaning in and putting a hand on his neck, holding him there. She tastes like sweat and dirt, and when he opens her mouth, like pumpkin spice.

One of the parents cough, breaking the moment, and Darcy flushes, bright pink on her cheeks and sucking them in and pursing her lips together. She looks sideways at Clint, “Obviously not off base, Clint.” She laughs and resettles against him. “Man, I gotta send Coulson a thank you card.”

“Yeah…” he breathes out without thinking. “Wait, what?”

“Well, he kind of overheard me talking to Jane about you and then you show up my escort?” Darcy rolls her eyes and lets her words trail off.

“He is a meddler and a yenta.” Clint laughs and tighten his hold, watching the night sky creep over them, with Darcy warm against him, seeds still stuck in her hair. “And I’m thinking of bringing him a pie.”


End file.
